The World's Hardest Game is a series of four flash games created by Stephen Critoph in the period 2007-2016. If you're a fan of TWHG then I recommend you join the discord server, where the community discusses anything and everything related to TWHG, including speedrunning and custom levels. We always like to have new members and if you have any questions we can help you out.
So, you want to play The World's Hardest Game, but you don't know where to start. As of 2021, Adobe Flash is no longer supported in web browsers, however there are still three ways to play The World's Hardest Game:
The recommended way of playing TWHG is to use Adobe Flash Projector. Adobe Flash Projector is the only official emulator of Adobe Flash. It emulates The World's Hardest Game (almost) exactly as it was experienced prior to 2021 in a web browser. This is the only acceptable method if you wish to submit your run to the main speedrun.com leaderboards (for the HTML5 leaderboard, use the HTML5 version as linked below).
To run TWHG in Adobe Flash Projector you will need to complete the following steps:
Ruffle is an unofficial flash emulator. It does not emulate enemy collisions completely accurately, and hence is not allowed on the speedrun.com leaderboard. However, the advantage of Ruffle is that you can run it in your web browser without any downloads. There are many websites that use ruffle to run TWHG but here is one option you can use for TWHG1 and TWHG2:
Alternatively, you may choose to play the HTML5 versions (sometimes called 'Updates') of The World's Hardest Game. These can be played on coolmathsgames with no downloads however they are quite different from the original versions of the game. TWHG1u was made by Stevie and has its own leaderboard on speedrun.com. The other HTML5 games were not made by Stevie and have substantial flaws, TWHG2u and TWHG4u being impossible to finish. You can play the HTML5 versions here:
Speedrunning times are tracked on the speedrun.com leaderboards for TWHG. If you want to speedrun TWHG, there are a few more things you will need:
Several unofficial level editors have been made by fans of The World's Hardest Game. For quick links see the home page. For more information about how to play custom levels and how to make your own levels, join the discord server and check the pinned messages in the #editor channel.